Those Rainy London Days
by buttholebooty
Summary: Rainy weather has our two favorite blokes tucked away into their flat. A stir crazy Sherlock starts another one of his experiments, Mrs. Hudson listens to VERY loud, terrible music, and John is once again caught up in the middle of it all. Probably going to be a few chapters.


The weather in London was dreary and cold, and it was raining even more so on that day than it had on any other day of the gray week. Raindrops plopped on and dripped down windows, where, if one looked outside, a few unlucky or unintelligent blokes could be spotted, walking briskly down the street and clinging tight to a sopping wet umbrella- or even the occasional hapless family of tourists who had been misfortunate enough to plan a walking tour of London on such a dank and dreadful day. However, apart from them, it seemed every other Londoner was remaining tucked away indoors to quietly wait out the rainy Sunday.

Rain clanked on the roof of 221B Baker Street and John let out a deep, thoughtful sigh. He hadn't been out of the flat for more than a few hours that entire week, due to Sherlock, who absolutely despised rain.

A few months before, a brief, heavy rainstorm had flooded some parts of London. John and Sherlock had been out to look into a suspicious death, and John had watched Sherlock run like a madman for cover under a nearby building after the first few drops had fallen. John followed and asked what was the matter.

"Quite simply, John, I am not fond of rain," Sherlock said, packing quite a bit of disgust into the last word. John just shook his head and grinned at the ground.

"You live in London."

Sherlock remained silent, giving John a testing look. "Yes. But I hate rain."

John tilted his head. "And why is that?"

Sherlock pursed his lips and sent a steely glance out at the dark sky.

"I do not like being wet and happen to enjoy my comfortable dryness in my dry clothes and might have had one or two unfortunate experiences with hypothermia during my childhood," Sherlock said. "Also, I find the strain it places on people around me, who are already wholly intolerable, difficult to endure- and every time it rains, Mrs. Hudson puts on her insufferable old records that I cannot stand, I cannot think-" he spins and grabs his head, "-with that ghastly thing blaring out some twisted resemblance of music...and," Sherlock stops and runs a hand quickly through his thick hair. "My bloody impossible hair gets soaked through and drips out in front of my face like...like I'm some sort of wet dog- and it takes hours to all dry out, and by then my whole head is simply doused with the drips, and I am terribly uncomfortable and not at my best and just- GAH!" Sherlock turns sharply and kicks at a puddle that has started to form under the overhang. His foot catches and John sees fear flit across Sherlock's face as he realizes he has lost his balance-

and his legs go up and his bottom crashes onto the wet ground away from the building.

Sherlock despises rain.

So today John is inside again, passing the time by reading and occasionally updating his blog with Sherlock's newest stir-crazy antics. John had woken up in the morning to find Sherlock dashing about the flat wearing safety goggles around his neck and carrying a box of baking soda, a cup of vinegar, some unidentifiable objects and assorted pieces of metal. While John prepared breakfast for himself, Sherlock pranced around, overturning stacks of boxes and papers with his jaw set. Finally he seemed to be satisfied, carefully lifting a small blue plastic box from under a pile of books. Then, with an "AHA!", he ran straight for the bathroom with his armload of trinkets.

"John, I'll be doing an experiment and mustn't be disturbed for..." He scrunched his nose in thought, then appeared to be decided. "Twelve hours."

And with that and a small, wry smile, he slammed the door shut with his elbow. The corners of John's mouth twitched and he turned back to his book.

A couple of hours later, the first notes of an alarmingly horrific opera drifted up from Mrs. Hudson's flat. John frowned and groaned in annoyance. He stood up and stretched, set his book down, and prepared himself a cup of tea, all while the croning notes of the opera jarred his eardrums.

"Sherlock," John called, placing his tea on the kitchen table. There was no response- but yet, he had been deathly silent from the bathroom the whole morning- John hadn't even heard any of the banging or thumping that usually accompanied any of his friend's bizarre experiments.

"Sherlock," he called again, walking over to the bathroom door and giving it a few swift raps. "Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson's found the lovely works of Florence Foster Jenkins, if you haven't heard." He waited for a moment, and, hearing only silence from the other side of the door, twisted the door handle.

"Sherlock, it's locked, could you open up?" He waited again and heard nothing. Suddenly John was struck with a gripping fear: could Sherlock have somehow fallen and knocked himself unconscious? He gritted his teeth and tried to dismiss the growing, itching sense of dread, and jiggled the door handle more urgently, then resigned himself to frantically ramming his back into the door until he heard the lock give, and stumbled into the bathroom.

"Sherlock, are you okay?" he said, eyes sweeping over the small room, then froze, eyes wide.

"Sherlock?"


End file.
